Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
Photo: AFP
Livni expects Lebanon to enforce UN arms embargo against Hizbullah
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, home after successful round of talks in Washington, says she expects Lebanon to prevent rearming of Hizbullah. 'Enforcing arms embargo is crucial,' she said. 'We know Hizbullah is weak in terms of arms'
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni heading home after a successful round of talks with the Bush administration said Friday she expects the Lebanese government to prevent the rearming of Hizbullah." Enforcing the arms embargo is crucial," Livni said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press as she headed for the airport. "We know that Hizbullah is weak in terms of arms."
Maintaining the embargo and disarming the Iranian-backed militant group with which Israel fought a costly war this summer, "is the test of the Lebanese government and the international community," she said. "Lebanon has to exercise its sovereignty and disarm Hizbullah," Livni said. "It is our expectation" that Lebanon will follow through.
This week Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told the Senate Foreign Committee smuggling of weapons across Syria's border with Lebanon had been halted. And on Friday, a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements, said there were no indications of new infusions
of weapons into Lebanon for Hizbullah.
Livni declined to provide estimates of how much of Hizbullah's arsenal was wiped out by Israeli air and ground assaults. During the war, Israel reported 70 to 80 percent of Hizbullah's long and medium-range missiles, which were considered a strategic threat, were destroyed. Much of Hizbullah's short-range arsenal survived.
